What are Christians facing in terms of church planting in the UK today?
In the 70s and 80s churches were planted in quite a serious way and they were simply replicating what they already knew. But today there is much more awareness of a movement and since 2000 it’s been more missional. We’re thinking about the people now before we even imagine what the church will look like. So the churches that are being planted are being formed out of a mission encounter. But it has often been the case that churches have been planted without much of a structure because even the denominations were unsure of how to support their own church planters. So there has been a lot of isolation among church planters. We’re doing some things for the first time, there are no established patterns, so there is isolation. Mission21 was formed out of recognition of this movement and to connect the people who are isolated and allow them to have a bigger sense of being part of a large movement. Through Mission 21 they could get connected and then use those connections. Out of the many mess